Chapter 17
COMPARED TO EVERYTHING ELSE OVER the past few days, the Autobooth goes quite smoothly.
No flashing red lights, no lockdowns as the nanobots circulating our systems feed the DNA scrapers with someone else’s biomaterial.
Our lenses pass the retinal scanner, there’s some imaging, and then our faces are matched up with our new identities on screen.
A half hour after leaving Manuel’s, we’re officially different people.
Jasa scratches at her skin as we walk away from the dome-like DeGov station. “How long until the wash wears off?”
“Few more hours.”
“And then that’s it? Everything goes back to normal?”
“Peeing won’t be fun for the rest of the day. Otherwise, sure.”
She looks sideways at me. “Are you still using your revs to dampen the pain?”
“No.” Not since we left Manuel’s, once I was sure it wouldn’t slow me down.
“Why not?”
“Pain’s important.”
She looks confused. “Are you being deep, right now?”
“Sure. But also, it helps you know if you’ve been stabbed or shot.”
“Oh.” I don’t respond and she shakes her head. “Fine. Where to now?”
“I have an old safe house in U-65. Not too far from here. Nice place, quiet and stocked.”
“And then?”
I shrug. “We ride out the next week and a half. I get the file. We part as wonderful acquaintances.”
“You’re just going to leave me.” Flat and a little disbelieving.
“Once I get my answers? Absolutely.” I shrug again. “You uprooted my life, put me in the crosshairs—and I don’t even have a guarantee of getting anything out of it. I don’t owe you anything. You can buy the safe house from me, if you like. It’s not like I’ll be telling the Keres.”
There’s silence after that. The wind’s icy and gusting hard; it’s probably been storming out past the walls, but the rain never reaches this far beneath the Plate.
Bots whir everywhere as we walk, sweeping and cleaning and performing general maintenance as the Core’s buildings turn to dawn lighting.
I keep myself hooded, despite my new identity, and am glad to see de Alwes copies me.
Probably unnecessary, but the Keres have a stupidly long reach.
“How old is old?” Jasa asks suddenly.
“Sorry?”
“Your safe house. When did you buy it?”
“I don’t know. Five years ago, maybe? Wasn’t long after I started.”
“While you were still working Oceanus.”
“Yeah.”
“Then we can’t go there.”
I slow to a stop. Green neon from a nearby shop coats the path and casts the old woman’s face into something vaguely eldritch. “Why not?”
“Because they might know about it.”
“They don’t. I know it’s confusing, but that’s why we refer to it as a safe house.”
“The Keres went over every detail of your life before they made the choice to save you, after the bombing. Every. Detail. If they were going to invest that much in you, they had to make sure you couldn’t be compromised. It’s all in the file.”
Silence again as I activate my cogs. De Alwes is afraid. Still in some pain from the wash, too, which is complicating things. But she seems genuinely worried.
“Is the safe house in the file?”
“I can’t imagine it’s not. There’s decades of raw tracking pulled from all over the place, all the way back to your childhood. Even some scraped DeGov data.”
“Ugh. What about from after I woke up?”
“A lot less, I think; it all seemed to run through the AI after they assigned it to you. If it doesn’t know something, they probably won’t either.”
Damn. This is why she asked about how long I’d known Manuel, before we met with him.
If she’s right, then anything stemming from my life in Oceanus could be compromised.
And since then… yeah. Manuel, and a couple of others, I kept off-book through necessity, because the Keres would never risk exposing themselves to anything that could bring down the wrath of DeGov.
But none of those illegal contacts have properly secure places to lay low, even if they were willing to help.
Which they wouldn’t be. And other than my visits to them, when was the last time Atti wasn’t in my ear?
Something must change in my expression, because Jasa quirks an eyebrow. “You’ve thought of somewhere better.”
“No.”
“Yes, you have.”
Another long few seconds of silence. I grimace. “Yes, I have.”